


but i know some day i’ll make it out of here

by CassandraStarflower



Series: lovely [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Minor Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, POV Second Person, Present Tense, Stephanie Brown-centric, Teen Pregnancy, all the stuff in steph's canon story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandraStarflower/pseuds/CassandraStarflower
Summary: Stephanie Brown, trauma, and growing up.A character study of the best Batkid (in my personal opinion).
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Bruce Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake
Series: lovely [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123244
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	but i know some day i’ll make it out of here

**Author's Note:**

> So I love and adore Stephanie Brown, but she has a shorter comic-book history (at least, what I know of her history) thanks to her long period of being dead, so this one ended up being the shortest.   
> Warnings for child abuse, implied sexual assault and attempts at it, and referenced canonical underage sex. Also, I really, really don’t like her gross ex Dean, the guy who got her pregnant, especially with how much older he looks than her. Yikes. Steph definitely got a raw deal in life.   
> Also, it was so fucking hard balancing attempts to stay relatively true to canon while simultaneously making Bruce a good dad. I think I did pretty well.

You know a lot of things by the time you’re six years old. 

You know how to tug your sleeves down over your hands to hide your arms when the teacher walks past. 

(So she can’t see yellow-purple-black on your skin.)

You know how to make mac and cheese on nights when your mother can’t do anything. 

(When your mother lies on the couch or in her bed after taking pills, staring at the ceiling or at the TV with empty eyes.)

You know how to carefully smear a little bit of your mother’s concealer on black eyes and bruised cheeks before leaving the house. 

(When your dad is angry or drunk or his friends are over and you weren’t fast enough.)

You know how to cheerfully smile at your teachers and all the other adults who give you concerned looks and ask sugary questions about “your Home Life, sweetheart”. 

(When they start noticing stuff, when you slip up.)

You know how to slip out your bedroom window when your dad comes home drunk or angry. 

(With his hard fists and loud yelling.)

You know how to sneak out of the house when your dad brings his friends home. 

(With their hungry eyes and leering smiles and the looks they give you, sometimes.)

You know how to avoid making your dad upset. 

(If he’s angry, he hits you. If he hits you, your mom gets mad. If she gets mad, they yell at each other. And if they start yelling at each other, your dad hits your mom and then she takes more pills. And it’s  _ your _ fault.)

You know a lot by the time you’re six. 

(You know you  _ can _ tell your father some things. You tell him about the babysitter. You don’t have that babysitter after that. Your dad never tells you what happened.)

(You find out, years later, that your old babysitter died of an overdose eight days after you told your dad.)

(You will never know the truth.)

You don’t like knowing these things, necessarily, but they’re important. You can use them to stay with your mother, so she won’t get in trouble and your dad will stay happy (as happy as he ever is). 

You spend a lot of time on the roof at night, watching the smog-filled sky. Sometimes you wonder if you’ll ever see Batman, swinging past over the roofs of Crime Alley. 

(You’ll meet him, one day, and it will mark the best and worst years of your life.)

You grow up in a bad part of town, not that Gotham has many good parts. Watching the stars at night and ignoring your parents screaming downstairs, your father bringing home any of his friends. 

You think maybe Bristol is the only really  _ safe _ part of Gotham to live in, and it’s not even in the city proper.

(Bristol might be safe from gangs and drugs and stranger-violence, but it has its secrets closed up behind fancy walls and expensive artwork.) 

(No class of people is ever safe from the sort of violence that parents can inflict on their children, that husbands inflict on wives, that wives inflict on husbands, that siblings inflict on siblings.)

(You’ll learn that, someday. And learn that abuse isn’t always fists and bruises and violence.)

You grow up knowing not to let grown-ups touch you or get too close. You grow up knowing that trusting the wrong person could lead to terrible things. You grow up knowing that if you get inconvenient to your father, he would get rid of you in a heartbeat. 

(No matter how much he might deny it. He would. You know this.)

(Maybe he loves you. Maybe not. Maybe he loves you but he loves money more. That might be the most likely option, all things considered.)

You grow up and your dad goes to prison. He robbed a bank. 

Your mom slips further away into pills from work. 

You go to school without bruises for a while, until your dad’s friends come back. 

You sneak out of the house again, not wanting anything to do with those men with their hungry eyes and leering smiles. 

Your dad gets out of jail. 

You start hearing about the Cluemaster. 

It’s not hard to put two and two together. 

Your father is a criminal, a B-list supervillain just because his stupid game show didn’t work out and he lost all his money. 

(It’s not like he made much from it in the first place. You have always lived right on the edges of Crime Alley, barely far enough to conceivably claim not to be an Alley kid.)

(Not that you try.)

Your father is making plans. 

Your father wants to hurt people for money. Wants to rob banks and kill people and cause so much violence. 

You want to stop him. 

You  _ need _ to stop him. 

…

It works for Batman, so why not you? 

You know how to sew. You gather up materials, cloth and even some old leather to make a vest, hidden under your shirt. 

(It won’t stop bullets, but it might blunt knives and ease bruises from blows.) 

(Not that you plan on getting into any fights, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.)

A mask hides your face, a hood covers your hair, and gloves cover your hands. 

You call yourself  _ Spoiler _ and set to work spoiling your father’s plans. 

Things go well at first, which of course means they have to go very wrong. 

Okay, so you don’t  _ mean _ to hit Robin in the face with a brick. 

In your defense, he scared you. 

Things go from there. Robin is actually pretty sweet, and funny, and before you know it you’re friends and your dad is in jail again, your mom is getting off the drugs and you’re doing  _ well. _

Of course, things have to go wrong again. 

Dean paid attention to you, said all the right things about how  _ cool _ you were, and you let him get in your head (and your pants). 

You break things off with him. Start dating Robin, kind of, as much as you can date anyone when you don’t even know their real name. 

But, well, now there’s a baby. 

Not Robin’s. 

(He’s still a little weird about the whole  _ dating  _ thing, let alone kissing, much less any kind of sex.) 

Dean’s. 

You elect to not bother trying to track Dean down. Screw him. You’re not gonna keep the baby, anyway. Adoption’s a nice option. 

Your mother helps a lot. Robin helps too, being his usual earnest (and deeply awkward) self. 

Batman is a grumpy-face and you don’t really listen to him anyway, but he quietly pays all the medical expenses. 

The baby is born and you give her up for adoption. 

Later, Batman promises to make sure she ends up someplace safe. 

You hope he keeps that promise. 

You want her to grow up safe and happy and far,  _ far,  _ away from Gotham. 

You move on. 

You learn Robin’s real name. 

It’s nice, having a name to put to your boyfriend. 

Then Tim’s dad finds out about Robin and makes him stop, makes him cut ties with all of his superhero friends. 

It’s lucky that no one knows you are Spoiler, because you can still see him. 

You aren’t Spoiler for much longer, anyway… since you step into the role of Robin. 

It feels… like a betrayal, being Robin, not telling Tim. 

But Batman wants you to be Robin. 

(A lot of kids want to be Robin, when they’re little. You did. Still do.)

(You won’t forever.)

(Not much longer now…)

Batman fires you. 

(You never realize that the reason he fires you is because you fight like Jason Todd. Because you talk like Jason Todd. Because every time he looks at you, he sees a dead boy in red and green and yellow and blood, and you’re reckless, you always have been, and he can’t let himself get hurt again.)

(It’s a mistake. And it directly leads to him getting hurt again, losing a child again.)

(He never realizes how much he hurt you.) 

(No one ever talks about it.)

(No one ever talks about anything, in this family.)

(It’s a fatal flaw in the fabric of this family. Not talking, never communicating, never ever talking about feelings.)

Tim comes back as Robin, and. 

You are Spoiler again. You have Tim still, kind of, right? And Cassandra, your best friend, and you… 

You are determined to prove yourself. 

And you make a mistake. 

And you  _ pay for it. _

(You never want to see Black Mask again as long as you live.)

(It might not be much longer.)

You escape. 

Leslie says she can’t save you. 

You only dimly hear Batman yelling at her, angry and-

(Scared.)

You get to say goodbye to Batman. 

He tells you that you were a good Robin. 

You think he might be lying, but it doesn’t matter. 

He cares enough to spare your feelings in your last moments, after all, and that’s something. 

\---

You don’t actually die. 

Leslie whisks you away to Africa and you stay there for a while. 

You don’t ask about your family. Or your friends. 

You don’t ask about Tim. 

(You’re afraid to. Afraid that they know you’re alive and just don’t want to see you. Afraid that they think of you as a failure and a horrible Robin.)

You stay away for a while, and then you go home. 

Tim is… not happy to see you. 

(Because he mourned you for all that time. They didn’t know you were alive.)

You try to figure things out. 

Bruce accepts you back more easily. You think he is used to people dying on him and then coming back, even though Jason’s situation is  _ entirely _ different. 

(And surprising. Meeting Jason Todd is bizarre and you think, for just a moment, that maybe you were a little too much like Jason.)

(Tim has never been reckless, not openly like you are. Like Jason always was. You almost think-)

(But no. Batman wouldn’t have seen Jason in you, right?)

(You are nothing like the fallen Robin that everyone had always spoken of in hushed whispers, afraid to bring him up in front of Batman, afraid to talk too loudly about him and make things bad again.)

(You never saw Bruce at his worst, in the aftermath of Jason’s death, before Tim came and helped Bruce through his grief and guilt.) 

Batman dies. He’s gone. 

It’s strange. You almost don’t really… understand. 

Batman always seemed so immortal, to kids on the streets and to  _ you, _ all this time, as Spoiler and as Robin. 

But he’s gone. Really gone. 

… 

Tim thinks he’s alive and Dick begs you to go  _ talk _ to him. 

You do. 

Tim shuts you out and leaves Gotham. 

You try to keep it together. 

Babs helps. So does Cass (all the way in Hong Kong). 

They give you Batgirl. 

It’s something better than Robin. 

You are  _ Batgirl _ and you are tough, badass, and amazing. 

It’s nice. 

Really nice. 

Tim comes back to Gotham and fights Ra’s al Ghul. 

You don’t get a chance to talk to him before he’s gone again. 

Batman is alive. Bruce Wayne is alive. 

When Batman comes back, he doesn’t say much about it. Just nods at you when he sees you, calls you  _ Batgirl _ without stuttering the way Dick does sometimes (the way everyone else does sometimes, so used to Cass or Babs in that alias that your version of the costume startles them. Seeing you as Batgirl startles them. 

You start hanging around the Manor more. Bruce pays for your college. You talk to Tim and try to fix things. 

You tease Damian until he’s red-faced and spewing insults, and laugh with Dick over shitty puns and stupid jokes, and trade Crime Alley stories with Jason (occasionally competing to see who can swear the most in a minute - far away from Alfred’s ears, of course (it’s Jason who wins, usually), and link arms with Cass, and sit with Tim while the both of you have minor breakdowns, and you provide snarky commentary when Bruce spars with people. 

You hang out with Babs in her Clocktower and lean over her shoulder, asking her questions about coding and fighting and anything and everything. 

You spend a lot of time with your mother, mending a strained relationship. 

It’s pretty nice. 

Everybody’s mending their relationships with each other, mostly. 

Well, Damian is still near-constantly insulting practically everybody save Dick, Bruce, and Alfred, but. 

You think that things are going pretty well right now. 

You and Tim sure aren’t going to date again, at least not anytime soon, but you think that’s okay. 

It’s nice to have a family. A big one that doesn’t even a little bit include Arthur Brown. 

(You grow up knowing lots of things, but you’re a teenager by the time you learn what a family is like.)

(It’s pretty good.)

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I made the “being fired as Robin” thing a miscommunication on Bruce’s part, or rather a complete lack of communication, because he’s just Like That, and decided to draw on Steph’s similarities to Jason to make it more “she reminded Bruce too much of Jason and he was terrified that he was going to get her killed, so he went and fired her and basically got her killed anyway”.   
> Come find me on tumblr @cassandra-starflower!


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